Thank you all for being here.
I thank Seattle Channel for being here and all the media people who are watching live stream and maybe still getting used to getting back to in-person press conferences.
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that housing is a human right.
But we surely don't need a piece of paper to tell us that.
Billions of working people in the world know that we need a society where all human beings have all their needs met and can live with dignity on a sustainable planet.
And yet in cities across the United States and in other wealthy countries, a housing affordability and homelessness crisis has been raging.
Thousands of our Seattle neighbors are homeless.
Tens of thousands of neighbors are on the precipice of economic ruin.
Many are so deep in debt after the last year that they have no realistic hope of ever getting their heads above water.
Not unless they get organized and fight back, that is.
Working people have lost housing, they've lost savings, they've lost security, they've had to move to find new housing to double up with others.
They've had to scramble and give up basic amenities just to keep a roof over their heads.
Small businesses have also taken a severe brunt from this pandemic and the economic devastation of the last year.
Meanwhile, billionaires and multimillionaires have enriched themselves during the COVID pandemic.
Corporate landlords have raked in millions of dollars.
This is a shameful indictment of the corporate landlord industry and indeed of the entire capitalist system.
It produces unimaginable wealth for a few by exploiting a majority of renters.
Dramatic steps are needed to fight the growing crisis of economic displacement and gentrification, which is being fueled entirely by profiteering corporate landlords, the big banks that underwrite real estate deals, and big corporations.
That's why I'm proud today to stand alongside our renters' rights movement to announce major new legislation that demands housing as a human right and our strategy to win them.
Our Socialist Council office is introducing legislation to enact residential rent control in Seattle.
The bill says that rent control without any corporate loopholes will go into effect the moment the shameful state ban on rent control is lifted.
With this rent control legislation, we are challenging every city council member, as well as candidates running for office this year, to declare whether they stand with the big corporate landlords and their failed housing policies, or with working people and housing as a human right.
And not just by saying they support this, which of course is the first necessary step, but whether they will actively join our movement to fight to win the gains for Seattle renters.
We especially question the Democratic Party establishment that controls the city's politics.
Will you stop dragging your feet and finally pass this legislation?
My office is also introducing legislation to enact immediately commercial rent control in Seattle to help struggling small businesses that are confronting the same displacement and gentrification pressures that working class renters face.
There is no state ban on commercial rent control, so there are no obvious excuses for the city council to delay on this measure.
I have asked City Council's technical staff to develop this legislation and they will be doing that over the next couple of months.
As we develop a powerful movement to win rent control, both for renters and struggling small businesses, our council office will also be advancing other important legislation to limit rent increases by requiring landlords to provide longer notice before they impose any increase, and by requiring them to provide relocation assistance when they push renters out when they increase the rent.
We're holding this press conference today at 23rd and Union, 22nd and Union, for a very important reason.
We are here in the heart of Seattle's historically black central district.
In many ways, this has been ground zero in the fight between profit-seeking corporate landlords on the one hand, and working class renters, homeowners, struggling small businesses, and marginalized communities of color on the other.
Right behind me, this building actually, is the apartment building owned and run for profit, The Central.
The corporate landlord here charges from $1,593 to $2,485 a month for a one-bedroom apartment.
Across the street there is East Union, another apartment complex owned by the same corporate landlord, Lake Union Partners.
They have apartments listed there right now for between $1,543 and $2,146 a month.
Just a block east of here on the other side of Union is that Liberty Bank building with the orange windows there.
In that building is not for profit, it's for people.
It was built by the Africa Town Community Land Trust and Community Roots Housing using public funds that we all in this movement fought to win.
The same one-sized one-bedroom apartment in the Liberty Bank building rents for $1,000 and $180 a month.
That is over $350 to $1,300 less per month than apartments right here, a few feet away, and you pay far more.
Why?
Because these are for-profit landlords.
That's the difference.
It's in the same block, the apartments are the same size, but the difference is whether it's for-profit or if it's publicly owned housing.
Now I'm sure the people in the political establishment and corporate landlords themselves will say, well why are you doing this now?
Didn't rents just go down last year?
Well, it's true that rents temporarily dropped in 2020 due to the pandemic and the recession, which of course, let's make sure we note, fell hardest on the same low and moderate income households that are renters.
But here's the rest of the story.
Since January of this year, Seattle's corporate landlords have raised rents by an astounding 9%, and we are still in the beginning of May.
That's 9% increase in just the last four months.
And this is a study by the corporate landlord industry.
As the study's authors enthusiastically celebrate this to their corporate landlord clients, quote, the days of plummeting rents in pricey coastal markets are officially behind us, end quote.
So they are celebrating the end of the one year where rents were somewhat falling.
So we have it straight from the horse's mouth, folks, that rents are going to go up.
This is an absolutely stunning admission by these real estate barons.
They see one glimmer of economic improvement, and they're wasting no time, zero time, to begin to exploit renters again.
This is shameful, but this is how capitalism works.
We would not have this with socialist-minded policies like rent control, and that is why rent control without corporate loopholes is an essential component of a city that would put people before profits.
Are we ready to fight for this?
We're about to hear from many community members who will unfortunately not be able to speak for very long, but we want to make sure the media sees loud and clear that this is a broad and large community that is uniting to win these renters' rights victories.
But I want to say one more thing.
Some 41 years ago this week, in fact, exactly tomorrow, Democrats and Republicans in the Washington State Legislature shamefully caved to the corporate landlords and the big banks and passed a bill outlawing cities from enacting rent control.
And you know why they did that?
It was in response to a movement in the 70s to fight to win rent control that began right here in Seattle.
So my question to our movement is, are we going to let them undermine us again 41 years later?
We're sending a message to them.
This law is illegal.
It needs to be struck down.
And with our city's rent control legislation, we first challenged Seattle's political establishment to declare which side they're on.
And then we're going to challenge the state's political establishment to declare which side they're on.
And let's make note, the Democrats control the state government right now.
The governor is a Democrat.
Democrats control the Senate 29 to 20. Democrats control the House 57 to 41. What are the reasons for not passing, you know, rent control legislation and overturning the ban?
No excuses, as you said.
We know, though, that to overturn the state ban and, first, to win this rent control legislation, we will have to build a powerful grassroots movement.
So that's step number one, understanding that winning a rent control legislation, much less one that will be free of corporate loopholes, which we have seen in many cities around the country, the loopholes don't work.
The loopholes undermine rent control.
Winning this is going to need a fighting movement.
And in the process of fighting to win rent control, as I said, we also are putting forward a bill to ban rent increases, without six months notice.
So in other words, we are requiring landlords to provide six months advance notice for any rent increase.
We're also putting forward a bill to require landlords to pay for a tenant's move when the tenants are forced to move because the landlord increased the rent.
So it's the landlord's choice.
If you increase the rent, you got to pay the tenant to move.
And you know what?
We're not the first city who will be doing that.
and- and other not where cities have stronger laws on the books so Seattle has no excuse.
I wanted to share with you all a petition that everybody should sign and take stacks of this petition Just 12 months ago, as our movement was advancing our Amazon tax, Mayor Durkan declared, quote, yeah, that never is going to happen, and I think it's irresponsible for anyone to say that it's even possible.
Well, we organized, we fought back, and we proved them all wrong.
We won the Amazon tax, but that is the kind of fighting momentum we will need to build again.
Because if you were there with us collecting the petition signatures for the tax Amazon movement, you will know how much support we had in the grassroots, but that support would have been latent and invisible had we all not gone out reaching out to everybody we ran into with the petitions.
So these petitions are something we are going to use to build this movement actively.
And our movement plans to collect at least 20,000 signatures from people across the city.
This petition says that we demand the city council stand with working class renters, marginalized communities, and struggling small businesses, and immediately pass residential rent control, commercial rent control, limit rent increases by requiring landlords to provide six months notice for any rent increase, and requiring landlords to pay relocation assistance when rents go up.
I now want to invite Shirley Henderson, who is the owner of this Squirrel Chops coffee shop and is a Seattle renter.
Welcome, Shirley.
Thank you so much, Councilmember Sawant, and to everybody here today.
Squirrel Chops is honored to host this really important press conference and, you know, to kick this movement started.
As Shama said, my name is Shirley Henderson.
I'm here today as a renter and a queer small business owner in support of this legislation in closing the loophole in Seattle's Just Cause Ordinance and also to demand commercial and residential rent control.
As Shama said, it's fitting that we are standing here in the Central District talking about the need for renters' rights and affordable housing.
It is one of the epicenters of Seattle's aggressive housing gentrification.
In just the past four years in this neighborhood, we have witnessed the loss of more and more of our community and our regulars here at Squirrel Chops to economic displacement at a breakneck speed.
And now, with COVID and the capitalist recession, we've only seen an exacerbation of this pre-existing housing crisis.
Without protections like Just Cause eviction legislation and rent control, with the eviction moratorium set to expire next month, we could see landlords start to file eviction notices against term lease tenants as their leases expire, or continue to see working people getting pushed out of the city with its crazy high rents.
And as Shama said, while rent hikes briefly slowed and even reversed during the pandemic last year, They are now some of the fastest rising rents in this country, while people are still on unemployment.
As a small business owner, I can tell you that this housing crisis affects small businesses as well.
Whether it's owners who are struggling renters or employees, many of whom are struggling to get by on unemployment, as a majority of the service industry jobs ended during COVID due to business closures.
It's time to close the loopholes and ensure all of Seattle's renters have just cause protection from eviction, and also to fight for commercial rent control for Seattle's struggling small businesses as a pushback to gentrification.
Small businesses have faced unprecedented destruction during the pandemic year, while big corporations and the billionaire class have profiteered off of it.
That's why I'm joining Councilmember Sawant's office and this powerful grassroots movement here today to fight for the strongest possible protections for renters getting unjustly evicted and to fight for residential and commercial rent control so we can have a city that is affordable for small businesses and for working people.
Shama's office has proven to be the most successful fighter for renters protections and housing justice, winning an end to winter evictions, the Carl Hagelin law, which is not increasing rents, right, for apartments that are not up to code, and most recently, the renter's right to legal aid if being evicted.
And I'm just talking about a few of the successes that her office has fought for and won.
So we have to ask, folks, why is she so successful?
It's not because she relies on the political establishment or insider deal making, right?
No, it's because she's successful because she empowers renters and empowers them to get organized and build pressure through building movements like we are here today doing.
It's the most important ingredient needed to win the strongest possible legislation without loopholes.
We absolutely need a united approach to win closing of the just cause loophole, not to mention to win rent control, given that it will be a huge fight against big landlords.
Not unity with corporate landlords and big business who make profits of our misery, but unity among renters, workers, immigrants, LGBTQ, black and brown communities, and struggling small businesses.
These people make up the vast majority of our city and are struggling to get by.
That's the unity we need, folks, in our renters' rights movement to force city council members to take action.
So I want to thank Council Member Sawant's office and the housing activists and community members who have worked so hard in fighting for an affordable Seattle.
Thank you, everyone, for being here.
Make Seattle affordable!
Rent control!
Rent control!
Make Seattle affordable!
Rent control!
Rent control!
Make Seattle affordable!
Thank you so much, Shirley, especially for explaining what kind of unity we need in order to win our demands.
And as Shirley said, we're not only fighting for rent control.
Obviously, that is the most important victory that will come out of this movement.
but we are also, along the way, fighting for many, many renters' rights in order to encompass a genuine renters' bill of rights.
And so I urge everybody to pick these leaflets up.
The back side of this leaflet describes all the renters' rights demands that our movement is fighting for, including the one that Shirley mentioned, to close the loopholes in Seattle's Just Cause eviction protection.
And many of our speakers will be speaking about some of the other demands as well.
Make sure you join us at this Renter's Rights Rally on Thursday, May 27th at 6 p.m.
at Pratt Park.
And now it's my honor to invite Reverend Dr. Robert Jeffrey Sr., the senior pastor of New Hope Missionary Baptist Church.
I was up at six this morning and had an event with the church, so I just jotted down a few things.
I don't know if it makes a lot of sense, but I just jotted down some things before I came.
But I wanted to join Sharma and all of you in this much needed struggle.
Today I'm here to join with all of those who are that are morally outraged by the fact that we have an unrelenting homeless problem in Seattle, one of the richest cities in America.
This is because of the ever increasing cost of living in our city.
It's no longer enough simply to do the right thing.
More than half of minimum wage workers have to work two jobs.
justice pay their rent just to keep their heads above water.
In many instances is 30% of their salaries.
We cannot continue.
We cannot continue this way in this city, half privileged and wealthy and the other half poor and locked out, many locked out by prejudice and hate.
gentrified from their communities because of redlining and other racist policies.
Many simply seeking just to live and raise their families who have no special skills, who do not aspire to be greatly wealthy, Those who carry our mail, clean our clothes, pick up our garbage.
Those who check our groceries out at the grocery store, who nurse us back to health at the hospitals.
Those who police our streets, who work in airports.
Speaking of the police, 90% of the police do not live in Seattle because they can't afford to.
Those who work in airports, those who teach our children, those who cash our checks at the banks.
Many of them don't even have savings in those same banks.
Those who sell our clothes in stores, who can't afford to buy from the stores that they're selling the clothes out of.
What about these, the many who now struggle to pay their rent, who don't even contemplate the idea of ever owning a home in Seattle, the place that they love, the place that many of them grew up in.
Those many who now face eviction, who sleep in their cars with their children, who are herded like cattle through large homeless centers.
These, those whose only sin, whose only fault was they work on jobs that did not pay them a decent livable wage.
This city, this nation cannot long endure this economic tyranny.
Let us all now join Councilwoman Sawant, who has been in this struggle for many years.
And let us join her now, and I pledge my total support to her, and seek remedies, remedies that allow those who have benefited from the many to give of their riches to help us heal and repair the breach of trust and hope that are destroying this country, destroying the city and destroying the lives of so many good, good, decent, hardworking Americans and hardworking citizens of Seattle.
Power to the people.
Thank you, Reverend Jeffrey, power to the people.
Thank you for giving voice to those millions and millions of American working people who make our cities run, but have very little in return to show for it.
I would like to invite now Jordan Van Vost, homeowner, nonprofit leader, parent, and climate justice activist, who has spoken eloquently last week in our Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee about the needs for our disabled community members to have renters' rights.
Good morning.
My name is Jordan Van Vost.
I'm a settler homeowner on Duwamish land here, and I'm speaking in solidarity with the renters' rights movement and for the legislation on this issue drafted by Council Member Sawant.
Although I'm extremely fortunate to own a home as a Buddhist, I live by the principle of impermanence.
The events of the past year are a wake-up call to all of us.
Our individual lives are fragile and uncertain, and our situations can change in an instant.
Although for people of color, women, the disabled, and other marginalized individuals, the societal safety net is often non-existent.
My older brother developed schizophrenia at age 19 but has managed to live independently and become a semi-successful artist.
Recently his landlord told me that he was considering not renewing his lease without just cause.
Fortunately for my brother, I was able to communicate to the landlord and explain how negatively this would impact my brother's mental health, that he would probably be forced to move much further from his family, and the landlord relented.
But how many people in my brother's situation don't have an ally?
How many human beings end up on the street, creating a burden for society, adding to our collective trauma, no matter how hard we try to turn away?
We need to close the loopholes in Seattle's just cause eviction protections.
A Dakota elder recently told me that we are living in the time of prophecy.
Devastating climate disasters and pandemics are two signs that our world is way out of balance.
We have to make choices now, which road we are going to follow.
Some would have us believe that we should stick with business as usual and allow corporations and their paid for politicians to make the key decisions in our lives.
I believe that we need to build a society based on compassion that truly leaves no one behind.
We need rent control because so many people are forced to leave their homes and our city because rents are unaffordable.
We need a Green New Deal and real climate solutions.
Building thousands of environmentally sustainable, publicly owned, affordable housing should be part of that.
But we can't wait for that to happen.
We must be willing to step out of our comfort zone and work together to build movements for change.
Speaking out at city council meetings to stand with renters like my brother and pass just cause protections, rent control, and other rent protections put forward by Council Member Sawant and our grassroots movement.
Thank you for your work.
Thank you, Jordan, especially also for highlighting not only the needs of our disabled community members, but also the connection between affordable housing and the Green New Deal.
We now have Joe Sugru, who is a UAW steward and a high school music teacher, and Amzai Jeffs, who is head steward at UAW 4121 and a doctoral student in mathematics.
Welcome.
Hi, everyone.
My name is Amzai Jeffs.
I'm a doctoral student in mathematics at UW.
I'm also a head steward with UAW 4121, the union of 6,000 academic workers and postdocs at UW.
And I'm speaking here in a personal capacity today, but my experience as a union organizer is one of the many reasons that I support rent control and better protections for tenants.
And I'm proud to be part of this movement with you all.
Many of our union members struggle to make rent in Seattle or they face exploitative and unsafe housing conditions.
On a personal level, I have needed to move every single year since I first came to Seattle because I couldn't find housing that was affordable or safe.
And this cost me thousands of dollars and a massive amount of personal effort, which I would rather have put into my doctoral studies.
And this situation isn't unique, right?
Many of our members in our union face similar and often very worse hardships when it comes to housing.
In 2018, when we negotiated our last contract at UW, we surveyed our membership about housing and we found that over half, almost 80% actually, of academic workers at UW are rent burdened and staggering numbers pay more than 50% of their income in rent.
And at that time, the UW provost dismissively told us that UW had no plan to help workers and students deal with rising housing costs.
And since 2018, these problems haven't abated.
We did a bargaining survey this fall, and again, thousands of members told us that they want to fight for much higher wages, not least to address the massive cost of rent in Seattle.
Unfortunately, the UW administration is continuing to take a dismissive and unserious attitude on these issues.
They gave us their quote unquote last best and final offer last Friday, and it included a 2%, a 2% raise.
That doesn't even keep up with inflation, much less than 9% increase in rent that Council Member Sawant mentioned earlier.
Yeah, and it also doesn't address the fact that for years, you know, we've been facing these issues.
So we're continuing that fight at UW, not only to get our needs met, but also to set a strong precedent for other campus unions to follow, since we know that a victory for one will be a victory for all.
And whatever happens in our contract negotiations, we never stop there, right?
As a union, we help build grassroots movements.
We have fought alongside Socialist Alternative, Councilmember Sawant's office, and thousands of activists to win victories like the Amazon tax to fund affordable social housing and Green New Deal projects, which of course benefit our members and the broader working class in Seattle.
So our members are going to be out here fighting for rent control and the inspiring program of tenant protections that's being launched today.
Whether we're up against a multi-billion dollar institution like UW, or up against the for-profit housing market, we know it's going to take a fight to win what we need.
But when we organize and fight, we can win.
Solidarity.
Hey everyone, my name's Joe Segrew and I'm also a member of UAW 4121 speaking in personal capacity.
In addition to being a union member, I'm also a renter and a music teacher.
It's no secret that Seattle, like many other cities, has become increasingly unaffordable for the majority of working people and renters.
Neighborhoods like the Central District have been decimated by racist gentrification and folks throughout the entire city are being pushed out every day as landlords increase rents that tenants cannot afford to pay.
Instead, working people should be able to not only live in the neighborhoods and in the city that they work in, that they make run, but they should be able to thrive in these communities as well.
And this sort of thriving requires a sense of housing security.
It's for this reason that I fully support fighting for rent control without corporate loopholes.
Also as a teacher I think it is morally bankrupt.
It's hard to talk about.
And a condemnation of the capitalist system that thousands of Seattle public school children experience homelessness every school year in this wealthy city.
Evictions can also force children to have to change schools and that can have a devastating impact on their learning and mental health.
The COVID-19 pandemic has only further shown the importance of stable housing and access to the internet for the success of our students and has continued to expose the inequities that our students endure.
We also know that black students and other students of color disproportionately face these inequities.
How are we supposed to say we live in a city where black lives matter if we're not prioritizing the lives of our black students?
If we live in a city that is okay with evicting students?
That is shameful and it's why I fully support fighting for this ban on the evictions of school children and educators during the school year and again in fighting for rent control.
And importantly, and this has been mentioned by some folks, but it needs to be said again, it has to be said that we cannot rely on the backroom deals or the clever negotiations of establishment politicians to hand these things down to us.
The reality is, working people do not win progressive victories, let alone major reforms like strong rent control, unless we fight for them.
We will have to all become involved and organize, sustain movements to win these renters' rights, just like when we fought for and won the $15 minimum wage in 2014 and the Amazon tax this past summer.
So with all that said, see you all in the movement and solidarity.
We are ready to fight.
Housing is a human right.
We are ready to fight.
Housing is a human right.
We are ready to fight.
Thank you Joe and Amzai for pointing out the important role that the labor movement needs to be a play be playing on the front lines of the fight for housing justice.
Now it's my pleasure to invite Castiel Hightower, police accountability activist and sister of Herbert Hightower Jr., who was killed by the police in 2004 while he was experiencing a mental health crisis.
The Black Lives Matter movement, Justice for George Floyd, and movements all across the globe to end police and racial violence inspired me into action in 2020 to fight for justice for my brother, Herbert Hightower Jr., who was killed by Seattle police while he was experiencing a mental health crisis.
And although it's been almost 17 years since his passing, my family's fight to bring Herbert's killer cop, now Assistant Seattle Police Chief Steve Herjack, to justice is just getting started.
However, it's important to note how that fight extends beyond police accountability.
For police violence is only one of many destructive and life-altering tentacles of a system that seeks to snatch away as much power from the people it depends on to survive.
It extends to racial justice and cultural competence in health care, and access to health care in the first place with a Medicare for all system, and education for full funding for public schools, and to end the school to prison pipeline.
And what brought us out all here today, this morning, fighting to end the exploitation of working class renters, and to fight for rent control and a strengthening of renters' rights in the middle of a pandemic and global recession.
We saw how the Democratic Party leadership in this city will play nice when the optics of going up against a multiracial, multigenerational mass movement gives them no other choice.
And then go back on that promise to defund SPD by at least 50%.
And we see how they have dragged their feet for years regarding brick control and renters' rights.
Because we know that the way to win this fight is in solidarity with one another among working people, not the establishment that wishes to divide us and lie to us.
This is not a time for games.
Our lives, our livelihoods are on the line.
Pass the 180 day notice bill.
Ban evictions of school children and educators.
End default evictions.
Create standardized lease terms that end the use of unfair and unjust boilerplate templates and ban the use of modern day redlining through forced credit checks, which we know have very little bearing on whether someone has the ability to pay.
And friends, we will have to build democratically organized, rank-and-file driven movements to win any of these.
We cannot rely on the democratic politicians, not on the so-called movement leaders who say they speak for the rest of us, but believe that their insider negotiations with establishment politicians are going to achieve results and put their own relations with powerful politicians first.
We know that never works for us.
Together, we can change the world we live in.
Together, we can fight and we will win an equitable rent control for ourselves, our families, and our communities.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Castiel, for drawing that important link between police accountability against this gruesome violence against people of color and the need for housing justice, and also recognizing what kind of movement leaders we need in our movement.
And I invite Matt Mailey, who is an educator, a member of the Seattle Education Association, a Seattle renter, and someone who's been on the front lines last year for the fight for the Amazon tax, and this year for winning the ban on evictions of school children and educators during the school year.
Welcome, Matt.
Good morning and thank you to everyone who's here today, in particular the activists, council member Sawant's office, and folks following along on the live stream.
My name is Matthew Maley, I am a member of the Seattle Education Association, I am a renter in D3, I just work up the street here, and I am a member of Socialist Alternative.
So first off, thank you again to Councilmember Sawant and her office for leading these important renters' rights victories, like the Right to Council victory that we just won.
I'm also here to stand in support of the protections on evictions against school-aged children and educators, which I'm proud to announce that my union, the Seattle Education Association, recently passed a resolution in support of nearly unanimously.
In the spirit of these many fights on the forefront of the renter's rights struggle, I am proud to be part of the movement here announcing the fight for rent control as well as many other renter protections.
Workers should be able to afford to live in the city that we work and make run as we've already heard.
Students should be able to learn without the disruptive process of moving halfway through a school term.
And families should not wonder whether or not they're going to be able to afford rent next month or for the next lease.
With at least two students on average being homeless or housing insecure and a class of 30, It is beyond time that we take action to protect students, families, renters, and all working people in Seattle's District 3 and the whole city.
Ultimately, as we've heard from many of the speakers, it will take a fighting movement, not just of renters, not just of working people, but also of all folks who stand in solidarity with those who are homeless or housing insecure.
So I call on all council members, thank you to the council members who are here today, and all renters rights organizations to join this fight, to join council members to want and her office in the fight for protections for school-aged kids from eviction defense, for rent control, and for the many other important renters' rights victories that we are here today fighting for.
Councilmember Sawant has been on the forefront of these victories and has stood in solidarity with the Seattle labor movement ever since being elected.
In particular, I remember six years ago standing on the picket line of the Seattle education strike with Shama standing alongside, just again, up the road at Garfield High School.
So as a union member, I know it will take a united movement, just like the previous spokesman said, of rank and file, not just the not just the labor leadership, not just the NGOs.
It will take a united movement of regular people, of labor activists, of renters, and progressives to fight for and to win these crucial victories, including rent control.
So thank you again to everybody who's here.
Thank you to everybody who's watching along at home, and solidarity.
Thank you so much, Matthew, and thank you to you and your fellow members of the SCA who were instrumental in getting the resolution passed in solidarity with the ban on evictions of school children and their educators.
And I also wanted to thank Jennifer Matter, the president of the Seattle Education Association, who wrote to my office saying that the union as a whole stands with us and that we should absolutely fight together.
One of the communities that is disproportionately affected by homelessness and unaffordable housing we know are our indigenous communities.
So join me in welcoming Deo Esquibel, member of Intertribal Survival, indigenous community activist, and renter.
Good morning, relatives.
My name is Derejate Esquivel.
I'm enrolled in Mohawk and Mexican, and I've worked in the Seattle area for the last six years doing homelessness and housing work.
I've been a case manager, and I've worked directly with families affected by increasing rents, threatened with eviction, over $100, $200 increase in rent.
It's been far too long that we've needed rent control.
We needed rent control before the pandemic.
We needed rent control before the city declared a state of emergency six years ago.
You know, this has been a problem for far too long.
There's no reason that the city can't pass rent control.
As Shama said, the state can pass rent control.
Democrats are in charge.
What we need is to prioritize working people and low-income families, children, folks that are suffering, especially during this pandemic, this crisis.
Today is May 5th, we recognize as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women's Day.
And we need to understand that housing stability is suicide prevention, is rape prevention.
We need to protect our indigenous women, our indigenous children, our families.
We need this type of protection to make sure that people are not tossed out on the street.
I've worked with hundreds of families and most of them are single income families, single mothers struggling to get by.
And as soon as this eviction moratorium is up, the landlords are gonna increase the price of rent.
There's gonna be mass evictions, there's gonna be mass homelessness.
We need to address this problem before it happens.
And we need to prioritize indigenous families, indigenous children, indigenous women.
This is the land of the First Nations, the land of Duwamish people.
And we have many, many tribes represented in the Seattle area, in the Seattle Native community.
So again, I ask, we need to, this needs to happen.
We need to protect working class families.
I wanna thank Council Member Sawant for the work that she's done, especially for the native community and in recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day and MMIW, all the work that she's done for us.
And so I just wanna say thank you.
Thank you again to all the volunteers and people that come out here, that'll be carrying petitions, getting gathering signatures.
So again, I just want to say thank you, and we need rent control.
We need housing stability.
So thank you.
Solidarity.
Thank you, Bia, for adjusting the microphone for all the speakers.
Thank you, Dale, for reminding us that today is the day for the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, and how crucial it is that we all join together in a multiracial working class movement in the fight against the crisis that is faced by our indigenous communities, and for pointing out, crucially, that housing stability has to be a key component of suicide prevention and rape prevention.
Thank you.
Next we have Renee Holmes, longtime Central District renter.
She and her fellow tenants in the shadow building near 18th and 4 right here in the Central District organized against their corporate landlord Cadence Real Estate and won an unusual victory.
Welcome Renee.
Good morning, everyone.
I'm happy to be here and to support rent control and to support the rent control legislation sponsored by our beloved Shawna Sawant.
The rents keep increasing, but the wages fall behind.
We need rent control.
If the rents are not controlled, it's going to continue to cause chaos.
There will be even more people living in cars, in tents, in our city parks, and on the sidewalks.
We are creating a society of squatters.
We walk blindly past them as if they don't exist.
They do.
They are people too.
They are in plain view.
So take off your blinders.
This problem is not going to disappear.
It's only going to get worse.
Millions have been set aside to house the homeless.
A homeless task force was even created to tackle the problem.
And yet men, women, children, and the mentally disabled are still suffering.
Mark Dones, get at me.
We know there is widespread support for rent control, but the corporate landlords and real estate developers will fight for their profits over our needs.
It will take getting organizing and building a movement to win.
In 2019, Cadence Real Estate purchased the Chateau Apartments, where my Aunt Mother Gordon, 90 years young, has lived for over 30 years.
It is her home.
They had planned on kicking out our community of seniors.
immigrants, people of color, and families of young children in order to build expensive apartments.
But we got organized.
We gathered hundreds of signatures on a petition to support us, held press conferences, gathered community support from unions, faith communities, and housing justice groups.
We've won several extra years to stay in our homes, and each resident now will receive $5,000 for relocation assistance, among other victories.
We need to do this again, on a much larger scale, to win rent control.
We're already known as sleepless in Seattle.
Now we're going to be known as soulless in Seattle.
Remember St. Mark 836, what does it matter to gain the whole world and lose your own soul?
Look inside your soul.
We need rent control and affordable housing too.
Our great Martin Luther King said, the time is always right to do what's right.
So let's do it.
Thank you Renee for speaking so clearly about the soullessness of profit-driven markets.
Now I'd like to welcome Raghav Kaushik, who is a homeowner and a big tech employee who also works with the South Asian community in the Seattle area and who played a lead role in our office winning the Seattle City Council resolution demanding that the Biden administration allow the generic COVID-19 vaccines to be produced all around the world to save millions of lives.
Welcome, Raghav.
The housing crisis that we have is a symbol of the disgusting levels of inequality which are there in the city and in this country.
It's worth noting that this level of inequality is international in scope and the COVID vaccine inequality that we are seeing right now is a great illustration of that.
And the reason why we don't have vaccines available, why there's so much inequality in the level of vaccinations in the world, is not because of some technical problem.
It's because big pharma, backed by the Western governments, by the rich countries, is monopolizing all the technology and refusing to share it.
As an employee of big tech, I'm quite aware that big tech is a big cause of the inequality in the world.
And I want to be, as an illustration into the homeless, into the housing crisis, and how the mindset of big tech plays into it, let me give you an example.
There was an article floating around in the media around late last year saying that there is an innovative solution to homelessness.
What was the innovation?
Apparently, homeless people should be housed in shipping containers.
If this sounds surreal to you, go ahead and do a Google search right now.
It appeared in a variety of mainstream media.
That was a solution that was being proposed for homelessness.
Well, let's be clear that there is no technical impediment to addressing homelessness.
There is a well-known technology.
It's called a home.
There is no, what we need is we need homes.
We need housing as a right.
We need renters' rights.
That's the kind of approach that is needed to address the housing crisis.
As an employee of Big Tech, like I said, I'm aware that Big Tech is part of the problem.
But as an employee, I want to tell you that my solidarity is with you.
As a homeowner and as an employee of Big Tech, my solidarity is completely with the issue of renters' rights.
We are in this problem together and our common enemy is the corporate class.
how powerful our movement has been and how inspired I am to be part of this movement.
We are addressing inequality on multiple fronts.
We had the minimum wage movement, we had the tax Amazon movement, and now we are talking about, and we just won the resolution last week to push the Biden administration to share its vaccine technology with the rest of the world and make vaccines available.
We have a movement which addresses inequality on multiple fronts, and it builds up international solidarity.
And even on renters' rights, we've been fighting it for a long time.
And I'm thrilled with the latest iteration of this fight, where we are taking a comprehensive look at renters' rights.
And I'm totally in the fight with all of you.
Solidarity.
Thank you, Raghav, for reminding us about the comprehensive look that we are taking at renters' rights.
So everybody in the movement, please make sure to read through these demands, ask us questions, and talk to all your neighbors and co-workers and friends and family about why it's important to win each and every one of these.
And our movement is showing the high-tech solution, as Raghav pointed out, that big tech simply does not seem to understand, which is a home to solve homelessness.
Reverend Jeffrey talked about the many, many, many workers who remain invisible even though without them, our city would come to a standstill even for a single day.
Well, one of those workers is Star Willey, who is a Seattle renter, who is a barista at Starbucks, and also one of the thousands who fought to win the Amazon tax last year.
Welcome, Star.
Hello, my name is Star Willie, and I'm here as a Starbucks barista in Seattle calling on city council members to stand with renters, stand with working class, LGBTQ, and trans community, and pass rent control now, without loopholes, as put forward by Council Member Shama Sawant and our movement.
As a barista in the city, I struggled for months to find an affordable apartment to rent.
Now the apartment that I moved into has become less affordable each time I renew my lease because they raise the rent every year.
I'm afraid that I will never be able to move because it costs so much to get into a new place and the rent has increased dramatically since I moved here seven years ago.
I have no credit so I cannot get approved for an apartment and need a cosigner even though I am fortunate to have a good renting history.
I know that if an emergency were to happen I could easily end up homeless.
As a trans person that could mean death.
I know corporate landlords that manage my apartment building want to increase the rent exponentially.
All around Seattle I see very expensive looking apartments being built that I know many people can't afford to live in.
Many of my friends have moved out of Seattle because it is unaffordable and I'm afraid that I will have to as well.
After saving up for years to move and having no extra money, it was very hard to pay all of the fees it takes just to look at an apartment and to apply.
I could no longer afford to look at apartments so I was forced to choose.
Now the corporate landlords of my apartment are very slow to fix repairs if they do at all.
They are trying to push out my neighbors who have lived there for over a decade by over monitoring them because they cannot increase their rent anymore.
Myself and many others cannot afford to live on their own.
That has put many people in unhealthy, unsafe situations.
Protecting renters is an imperative part of decreasing homelessness.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, many small businesses were struggling with rising rents and no protections.
Many places I like to go to have been forced out of business.
If you like to have a person serve you coffee, workers need homes and places to work.
Commercial renters need protections too.
If you love your local businesses, show them by supporting renters' rights struggles.
We cannot rely on the establishment to protect our rights to live in Seattle.
It's up to us workers to show them that we will not be phased out.
We need to work together to protect ourselves and our neighbours.
City council members need to pass residential and commercial rent control with no loopholes.
We need to close just cause loopholes so landlords can't kick us out for no reasons at all.
And when we do have to move, because rent increases, we need relocation assistance.
City Council needs to take action now.
Thank you so much, Char, for bringing the voice of all the workers who are facing these constant rent increases but are not heard by most politicians.
We have two more speakers, and these are important voices.
So now I would like to invite Carla Esquivel, who's a small business owner.
She owns the Andalus Gift Shop in Columbia City.
Thank you.
Small businesses like mine have struggled to survive and pivot dozens of different ways during the pandemic in order to pay our rent and to put food on our table.
Meanwhile, large corporations and corporate developers have vastly increased their riches during this pandemic.
If our rents continue to rise at the same high rate as we've seen pre-pandemic, many more small businesses will be forced to close their doors, and that is not good for our communities.
That is why I, as a small business owner, am here to unite with working people in a movement to win citywide residential and commercial rent control.
I urge other small businesses to join us.
I will also be helping to collect signatures on the rent control petition from other small businesses.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Carla.
We definitely need small business owners like yourself and Shirley Henderson to be an active part of this movement.
We will not win rent control without your support.
And now, we have Kaylin Nicholson, who is a Seattle renter, a parent, and a member of Socialist Alternative.
My name is Kayla Nicholson.
I'm a member of Socialist Alternative, as Shama said, and I'm also a working mom, and my family are renters.
And like so many other families in the city and across the country, we experience the yearly anxiety of not knowing whether our lease will be renewed or whether our rent will be increased beyond what we can afford, potentially risking having to move our children to different schools, disrupting the friend groups and social networks that we've worked so hard to build.
Some threats we no longer have to worry about, thanks to the fighting movement of renters and housing rights activists who, along with Councilmember Sawant, have organized and mobilized and won protections against slumlords raising rents if housing is not up to code, caps on move-in fees and the right to a payment plan, and most recently, the huge victory of right to counsel, which guarantees every tenant facing eviction the right to be represented in court by a lawyer.
But despite these and countless other crucial victories towards a growing Tenants' Bill of Rights, led up by Councilmember Sawant and our movements, the situation for tens of thousands of renters in Seattle is still extremely precarious.
Many have lost jobs or income during the COVID crisis, yet, as many speakers have already spoken to, the housing prices continue to skyrocket.
And that's why I'm a socialist.
I have experienced firsthand how piecemeal reforms, as important as they are, are not enough to fundamentally change the balance of power in society between the super-rich and the rest of us.
And that everything we have managed to save and win can be wiped out in an instant by one recession or one personal tragedy.
While under capitalism, the billionaires can continue to hoard an ever-growing share of our society's resources, as we have seen under this pandemic with the insane pandemic profiteering.
So instead of negotiating with establishment politicians and business lobbyists to see what is acceptable to them, everything that we have won has been by organizing fighting movements of ordinary people around demands that directly impact our lives.
This fight for rent control being relaunched by Shama Sawant and our movement is absolutely vital to fighting back against skyrocketing rents, and that's why we're planning to collect at least 20,000 petition signatures urging the rest of the Seattle City Council to stop dragging its feet and to pass Shama's urgently needed legislation for residential and commercial rent control.
And immediately, The City Council should pass the bill that requires landlords to give at least 180 days of notice for any rent increases.
We know that winning rent control will take a very strong and united movement and we need unions to support this campaign with endorsements and by mobilizing their members out to help collect signatures and I just want to thank you say thank you so much to the union members who've already spoken here today.
Workers in this city have needed rent control for a long time and we have shown and are showing today that we are prepared to sacrifice our time and our money to win it now simply because we can't afford not to.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Kaylin.
We're going to be wrapping up this rally now.
For the media people who are present here, myself and other speakers are available for one-on-one conversations, if you so desire, the media who are watching us online.
My office welcomes any questions from you, any clarifications.
The draft legislation is available to you all.
We're happy to answer questions.
For those who are here, please take a copy of these handouts.
One of them illustrates the Economic Evictions Assistance Ordinance, how it works.
We also have draft legislation for the various bills, residential rent control, for economic evictions assistance, and for the 180-day or six-month notice for any rent increase.
And also we have an FAQ, a Frequently Asked Questions for Rent Control, that community members should take with you, because I know you will run into questions from people who are hearing from the corporate media that it doesn't work.
Well, it does work.
That is why they oppose it so fiercely.
If it didn't work, corporate landlords wouldn't be opposing them.
So let's gear up for this fight.
Make sure you take the clipboards with petitions and return them to us when you have signatures.
Are we ready to build this movement?